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Star Trek!

Star Wars!

Stargate!

Battlestar Galactica!

Babylon 5!

Firefly!

Dune

Doctor Who

Farscape

Andromeda

Other (please specify)

[Starver]

Your description of Universe (that I've not yet seen, I must admit, but I know of) reminded me of Space: 1999[1].  You might argue it's not a top show, but that's another prime British SF show, if you like that kind of thing...

Plus another programme comes to mind.  (Good job I voted "Other".)  Does anybody else rate (if they know of it) Star Cops?  Direction, imagery and pace akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey (prior to the encounter with TMA2), with the basic premise being a realism-led Police Procedural (IN SPACE!!![2]).



[1] Not to be confused with the Space: 1889 RPG, although the confusion is usually the reverse case, when I name-check it in connection with Steam Punk, or similar.

[2] Well, WITH SPACE!!!  Not always IN it.

[Frumple]

Chiming in vaguely for LEXX, even though all I really remember is the opening song and the dragonfly ship thing

Honestly, though, the only sci-fi series I've actually seen a majority of is star trek TNG, I think. Seen bits and pieces of the rest of the ST stuff, the original trilogy of SW (and I think one and two of the prequel stuff?), bits of the old galactica, bits of a couple of the SG series, a chunk (though badly fragmented) of Babylon 5 and farscape, few eps of Andromeda (I think. That's the one with Hercules, right?). I've still watched none of firefly because its name terrifies me (Anthony! *fistshake*), but I have read a couple of lengthy fanfics involving it. Did see the dune movie, but not the rest of it.

Just TV or movie's probably a little limiting for me, as I don't really watch either, but eh. Not like I can actually remember all the sci-fi I've read, heh.

[darkrider2]

Is this specifically sci-fi series? cause movies are in the title.

I'm asking cause Total recall is my favorite sci-fi ever, the original, not that shitty new one.

[Starver]

Is this specifically sci-fi series? cause movies are in the title.

Movies have been mentioned.  'Serieses' of movies, mostly, but I suppose they're more prominent in the memory.

(Nobody mentioned the Alien(s/³/etc) series?  I suppose they get YMMV-y, though... assuming you even rated the first (and second, especially) as much as I did.)

I'm asking cause Total recall is my favorite sci-fi ever, the original, not that shitty new one.

There's a new one?  How's that going to work?  CGIed to hell, I suppose, for starters, if they even attempt to represent (in an updated way) all the then-cutting-edge SFX.  And now they've done The Matrix and Inception, I can't see it being anything special, plot-wise, in today's film environment.  (Apart from being cursed by being a remake, something that's often several magnitudes worse for its eventual critical acclaim than being a sequel!)

BICBW, good luck to them.  And maybe I'll see it and love it...  But I warn them, I got pissed off with the guy in the latest Transformers film who left his job at NASA in Florida, where he wore a hi-vis jacket, drove all the way to...  wherever it was (Seattle?  Chicago?  I forget...) with his buddies and started battling (with and against) multi-tonne Giant Robots With Unlimited Explosive Warheads while still wearing his hi-vis vest!  Never mind that (experienced soldier or not) he was a bit squishy-bodied to battle against anything that size that didn't have Asimov's Three Laws embedded in it and the wherewithal to uphold them.  I've got to warn all of today's film-makers that I might well have taken for granted all kinds of weird stuff (e.g. that when Rotwang gave life to his robot, in Metropolis, he also managed to make it an (externally) perfect replica of Maria), but unless you deliberately lampshade the Applied Handwavium being used, which was at least one saving grace with The Core and its 'Unobtanium', you're probably going to annoy me.  Remake-be-damned.  Oh dear, I think I've just gone off on a rant...  Shall we summarise this as "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be"?

[alway]

It's already out btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_(2012_film)
Released a few days ago so long as you don't live on the island of kangaroos.

[Starver]

<checks local multiplex-chain's web-site>

Spoiler: What's on... (click to show/hide)

Next seven days:
Ted (meh, decided that's not my sort of thing, BCBW)
The Dark Knight Rises (seen it)
The Lorax (probably will see... but 2D or is it worth it for the 3D?)
Ice Age 4: (another 2D/3D choice... but did I even see IA3?)
The newest Spiderman (seen, in 2D)
Magic Mike (it'll never be as good as The Full Monty... )
A number of live Olympics things (maybe on the big screen is where I should have seen Emma Watson and Hermione Granger[1] magic their way to a rowing gold)....
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (never saw the original)
Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World (sounds interesting, if not in my usual range)
Something with Katy Perry in (meh)
The Five Year Engangement (no, still not technically a 'romantic comedy' person)
Prometheus (seen)
Snow White And The Huntsman (seen, good story, but the celebratory ending was... strange)
MIB 3 (seen it...  And it looks like the MIB series was another that could have been added to the poll)

[1] Intentional malapropism, before you wonder..

Nope, not there.  And not apparently there on the whole chain's listing, nationwide, for the foreseen future...  Not even prefixed with 2D, 3D or Imax.  Whether they share my first impressions or have been beaten to some sort of licensing, I wouldn't know.  (And, no, no kangaroos, although there are said to be (or have been, up until a harsh winter) some wallabies.)


Ah, hang on.  The WB-branded cinema chain (with an outlet about half a mile closer to my home than the other) has it appearing 29/Aug.  Either beyond the other chain's look-ahead, or a restricted release.  Colin Farrell and Jessica Biel?  Well, decent names, but I quite liked the unknowns' performance in Starship Troopers, so not really something to judge by.

[fqllve]

I've been watching FlashForward lately, and despite it's somewhat mediocre handling of an interesting premise it just has those small touches that tell you that the people who created the show really cared about what they were doing and really wanted to produce a quality show. Plus they really avert the whole "Zoom, enhance," thing that I particularly can't stand, along with a few other things common in television like poor handling of autists, going so far as to distinguish between autists and savants explicitly.

And really, what bad can you say about a show that begins with getting everything right that Left Behind got wrong with it's cozy disaster. Too bad about it being canceled on a giant cliffhanger.

[Flying Dice]

Poll is too restrictive. :V


Anyhow.

Film: Stargate. Probably tied with Blade Runner, Alien, A New Hope, and Total Recall. If we're counting comedy as well, then Spaceballs and ST: The Wrath of Khan. Zing.

Series: Star Trek: ToS. Probably Firefly if I had gotten around to watching it. There was some short, British, quickly discontinued series about a colony on a semi-desertish planet fleeing a dying Earth that got a bit of interest, but I can't recall the name. Doctor Who was fun, but the earlier Doctors fluctuated a bit too much between camp-good and interesting-good for me to put them over ST:ToS.

[Itnetlolor]

SYFY has been airing some pretty good stuff today:
-Pandorum (Actually not bad for a sci-fi horror; a great amount of the crew of a colony ship gets addicted to bath salts)
-Serenity
-Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Just ended/credits rolling)
-Blade Runner (up next/just starting, as of this post; takes place 7 years from now, apparently. 2 years after the events of BTTF2.)
-The Fifth Element
-Star Trek: Insurrection (Personally, I think First Contact is the better one; best of the Next Generation breed)

EDIT:
Oh crap. Just realized something. If Total Recall got a reboot; what are the chances Blade Runner will suffer the same fate?

[Flying Dice]

I forgot about Close Encounters. That means it's time to dust off the VCR for another viewing.

[fqllve]

There was some short, British, quickly discontinued series about a colony on a semi-desertish planet fleeing a dying Earth that got a bit of interest, but I can't recall the name.

Outcasts? I haven't seen it but it gets mentioned in the same breath as Earth² a lot. Sounds like it would probably be better though. Should I actually go ahead and check it out?

Oh and speaking of camp. Cleopatra 2525. That's really all there is to say on the matter.

[Starver]

Poll is too restrictive. :V

(Sorry, me again.  Agreed, and the smiley reminded me: V.  And that's had a remake, I see, that passed me by...  Oh boy![1])


@Flying Dice: That sounds so similar to the Space: 1999 concept (except it was the Moon they were accidentally travelling through the galaxy on).

@Fqllve: Yes, Cleopatra 2525.  Another that deserves mention, under that parameter.

editing to add, so I won't have to post yet again: Manimal.  Automan.

newedit, ditto: The Tripods.  Ohdamnit, I'm not explaining any more (especially when it comes to stuff like the Supermarionation serieses, and stuff like UFO from the same stable), Primaeval, The Tomorrow People, Chocky (and sequels), Sapphire And Steel, The Prisoner (saw that remake... not as bad as expected).  Hell, how about The Clangers, seeing as I'm obviously on a UK-centric brainstorm?  Would you count Ludwig (a cartoon mechanical egg-thing) as SF?  How about The Mysterious Cities Of Gold (not British, or technically SF, but remembered the giant golden solar-powered plane/bird thing, while I was half-way through regurgitating that list)?

[1] Quantum Leap.  How'd I forget Quantum Leap?  Now, if only I could go back and put right all my posts that went wrong...

[palsch]

There was some short, British, quickly discontinued series about a colony on a semi-desertish planet fleeing a dying Earth that got a bit of interest, but I can't recall the name.

Outcasts? I haven't seen it but it gets mentioned in the same breath as Earth² a lot. Sounds like it would probably be better though. Should I actually go ahead and check it out?

Yeah, Outcasts. I think I was one of a dozen people to watch the whole thing. It was more of a BBC action drama in style (the production company makes Spooks and Law and Order UK) than TV Skiffy. Which could have been a good thing with better writing. It really needed to tie the high-concept ideas into the drama better, and maybe hire a couple more experienced SF writers or science consultants.

Spoiler: Very minor spoilers, but still... (click to show/hide)

A scientist character takes way too long to make any connection between a four letter sequence and DNA for one thing, then there are a bunch of what look like total insults to science that are, probably thankfully, unresolved.

It may be worth a watch once you've run out of better shows, especially given it's only eight episodes and you can follow along with this Guardian blog to have a good laugh at it's expense. I might check out the novel followup if it ever gets written just to see how much potential was wasted. Or if we got spared an absolute travesty, which looked likely.

[Yoink]

That one movie with the people in the space-thing who fly around and stuff and there's this kid who ends up stowing away on their space-thing because there's a shoot-out going on in the spaceport and then stuff happens and they're flying around and some bad guy is after the kid and all the main characters die to save him.

...I er, haven't really watched that many 'space operas'. Can I vote for the only Star Wars film I've seen?

[RedKing]

editing to add, so I won't have to post yet again: Manimal.  Automan.

I...I think I love you, man. I thought I was the only person on Earth who still remembered those shows. Along with some other gems of 80's sci-fi like Max Headroom, Hard Time on Planet Earth, Otherworld and the War of the Worlds series (which was actually early 90's, but whatever).

Oh, and Alien Nation. How could that one go missed until this point??


EDIT: oh, and for the poll I answered Dune. Because Muad'Dib accidentally the whole universe.